Higher Education: America's Problem That Isn't Being Solved   (February 18, 2014)


Once we accredit the student, not the institution, existing universities will compete directly with Nearly Free Universities not in issuing diplomas but in how much students actually learned and mastered.

One of the key insights from recent work in psychology is that humans tend to substitute easier problems rather than solve difficult problems. Daniel Kahneman explained this dynamic in his recent book Thinking, Fast and Slow.

To "solve" a difficult problem we are unfamiliar with, we substitute a lesser problem we already know the answer to, and then declare we've "solved" the original (often knotty, complex) problem.

The real problem then festers, unsolved and addressed, while the misguided "solution" only drains resources and exacerbates the real problem.

An excellent example of this dynamic is higher education: the real problems are soaring costs and sharply declining yields in actual learning and in the real-world value of a diploma.

Consider the study Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses which concluded that "American higher education is characterized by limited or no learning for a large proportion of students."

These charts illustrate the costs and diminishing returns:

The yield (in earnings) on the increasingly unaffordable college degree is declining sharply:

The Status Quo has substituted two false "solutions" that completely ignore the real problems of soaring costs and diminishing returns: increasing student loans and hiring hundreds of thousands of non-teaching administrators.

While student loans have soared to over $1 trillion, with direct Federal loans ballooning from $115 billion to over $700 billion in a few short years, only 37% of freshmen at four-year colleges graduate in four years (58% finally graduate in six years), and 53% of recent college graduates under the age of 25 are unemployed or doing work they could have done without going to college.

New Analysis Shows Problematic Boom In Higher Ed Administrators:

In all, from 1987 until 2011-12--the most recent academic year for which comparable figures are available—universities and colleges collectively added 517,636 administrators and professional employees, according to the analysis by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting.

“There’s just a mind-boggling amount of money per student that’s being spent on administration,” said Andrew Gillen, a senior researcher at the institutes. “It raises a question of priorities.”

The ratio of nonacademic employees to faculty has also doubled. There are now two nonacademic employees at public and two and a half at private universities and colleges for every one full-time, tenure-track member of the faculty.

The number of employees in central system offices has increased six-fold since 1987, and the number of administrators in them by a factor of more than 34.

I have demonstrated in my book The Nearly Free University and The Emerging Economy: The Revolution in Higher Education that the tuition for a four-year bachelor's degree could (and should) cost $5,000, not $100,000 or $200,000.

The technology and tools already exist to accredit the student, not the institution and provide distributed courses, adaptive learning and real-world, workplace-based workshops for a tiny fraction of the ineffective, unaffordable system of higher education we are currently burdened with.

Once costs decline 95%, there is no need for student loans or the bloated bureaucracies currently overseeing the parasitic student-loan system.

Once we accredit the student, not the institution, existing universities will compete directly with Nearly Free Universities not in issuing diplomas but in how much students actually learned and mastered. If students can learn as much or more for $5,000 (including workshops in real-world workplaces) than they do for $160,000 in conventional universities, then the sectors of higher education that charge $160,000 for a 4-year degree will vanish.

In essence, technology has leapfrogged the existing higher education Status Quo, just as it has leapfrogged the banking sector.

Gordon T. Long and I discuss these issues in this 25-minute program:

YouTube link to the program

Here is a taste of what we discuss:

THE LEGACY SYSTEM IS OBSOLETE

  • Media and knowledge are no longer scarce—both are essentially free
  • Students no longer need to be congregated in classrooms to hear oral lectures; the lectures can be distributed at almost no cost via the Internet
  • The factory model of teaching the same texts and curriculum no longer makes sense; every digital device is a library and a display for oral lectures
  • Lessons and methodologies of learning can now be tailored to individual students (adaptive learning) via interactive software
  • The need for live oral lectures as the primary (and presumed to be best) mode of teaching has vanished
  • Students learn mastery in workshops held in real-world workplaces, not classrooms

    THE FUNDAMENTALS HAVE CHANGED

  • Colleges must separate Research and Educational funding
  • Education versus Occupational Training
  • Internships versus Apprenticeships; why corporations are no longer training
  • "Time is the New Competitive Dimension;" the educational systems needs to understand what this means
  • The New Economy requires Soft Skills such as Collaboration, Lifetime Learning, Continual Innovation and the full spectrum of Entrepreneurial Skills




  • The Nearly Free University and The Emerging Economy:
    The Revolution in Higher Education

    Reconnecting higher education, livelihoods and the economy

    With the soaring cost of higher education, has the value a college degree been turned upside down? College tuition and fees are up 1000% since 1980. Half of all recent college graduates are jobless or underemployed, revealing a deep disconnect between higher education and the job market.

    It is no surprise everyone is asking: Where is the return on investment? Is the assumption that higher education returns greater prosperity no longer true? And if this is the case, how does this impact you, your children and grandchildren?

    go to Kindle edition
    We must thoroughly understand the twin revolutions now fundamentally changing our world: The true cost of higher education and an economy that seems to re-shape itself minute to minute.

    The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy clearly describes the underlying dynamics at work - and, more importantly, lays out a new low-cost model for higher education: how digital technology is enabling a revolution in higher education that dramatically lowers costs while expanding the opportunities for students of all ages.

    The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy provides clarity and optimism in a period of the greatest change our educational systems and society have seen, and offers everyone the tools needed to prosper in the Emerging Economy.

    Read Chapter 1/Table of Contents

    print ($20)       Kindle ($9.95)



    Things are falling apart--that is obvious. But why are they falling apart? The reasons are complex and global. Our economy and society have structural problems that cannot be solved by adding debt to debt. We are becoming poorer, not just from financial over-reach, but from fundamental forces that are not easy to identify. We will cover the five core reasons why things are falling apart:

    go to print edition 1. Debt and financialization
    2. Crony capitalism
    3. Diminishing returns
    4. Centralization
    5. Technological, financial and demographic changes in our economy

    Complex systems weakened by diminishing returns collapse under their own weight and are replaced by systems that are simpler, faster and affordable. If we cling to the old ways, our system will disintegrate. If we want sustainable prosperity rather than collapse, we must embrace a new model that is Decentralized, Adaptive, Transparent and Accountable (DATA).

    We are not powerless. Once we accept responsibility, we become powerful.

    Read the Introduction/Table of Contents

    Kindle: $9.95       print: $24



    NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency.

    Thank you, Susannah W. ($100), for your outrageously generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.   Thank you, Duane S. ($20), for your much-appreciated generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.


    "This guy is THE leading visionary on reality. He routinely discusses things which no one else has talked about, yet, turn out to be quite relevant months later."
    --Walt Howard, commenting about CHS on another blog.

    "You shine a bright and piercing light out into an ever-darkening world."
    Jeremy Beck


    Contributors and subscribers enable Of Two Minds to post 275+ free essays annually. It is for this reason they are Heroes and Heroines of New Media. Without your financial support, the free content would disappear for the simple reason that I cannot keep body and soul together on my meager book sales alone.

    Or send coins, stamps or quatloos via mail--please request P.O. Box address.

    Subscribers ($5/mo) and those who have contributed $50 or more annually (or made multiple contributions totalling $50 or more) receive weekly exclusive Musings Reports via email ($50/year is about 96 cents a week).

    Each weekly Musings Report offers five features:
    1. Exclusive essay on a diverse range of topics
    2. Summary of the blog this week
    3. Best thing that happened to me this week
    4. Market Musings--commentary on the economy & global markets
    5. From Left Field (a limited selection of interesting links)

    At readers' request, there is also a $10/month option.

    What subscribers are saying about the Musings (Musings samples here):

    The "unsubscribe" link is for when you find the usual drivel here insufferable.

     
     
    Dwolla members can subscribe to the Musings Reports with a one-time $50 payment:



    The Heroes & Heroines of New Media:
    oftwominds.com contributors and subscribers



    All content, HTML coding, format design, design elements and images copyright © 2014 Charles Hugh Smith, All global rights reserved in all media, unless otherwise credited or noted.

    I am honored if you link to this essay, or print a copy for your own use.

    Terms of Service:
    All content on this blog is provided by Trewe LLC for informational purposes only. The owner of this blog makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information. These terms and conditions of use are subject to change at anytime and without notice.


                                                                             
    blog     My Books     Archives     Books/Films     home


     



    Making your Amazon purchases
    through this Search Box helps
    support oftwominds.com
    at no cost to you:


    Add oftwominds.com
    to your reader:


    Free Page Rank Tool

    Oftwominds.com #7 in CNBC's
    top alternative financial sites